


A Step Upon the Stair (For Good or Ill)

by CrossroadProphet



Series: The Hand of Fate (& A Touch of Death) [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fate!Taako, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lich!Taako, M/M, Necromancy, Rituals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossroadProphet/pseuds/CrossroadProphet
Summary: Fate is the development of events beyond a person's control, cultivated by a supernatural power.And it's a good damn thing Taako isn't really a person.





	A Step Upon the Stair (For Good or Ill)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on the idea of this one for awhile. Almost as long as the Fate!Taako series has been going, honestly. It was supposed to be a one-shot like the others, but it got a bit away from me!

Taako’s been around the planes more than once. He’s a savior of existence and the literal Hand of Fate. Despite that, there are only three things Taako knows without a shadow of a doubt:

  1. Math is absolute shit and best left to nerds like Barold.
  2. If something ever came between him and his family again he would so utterly destroy that threat that there would be no trace of its atoms across any plane.
  3. Being the Hand of Fate means he will forever only pretend to know everything.



That third one is the newest addition to the list and somehow even more annoying than the math bit.

Unlike Lup and Barry, he didn’t get a hot new co-worker to explain the ropes or even a handy little _Fate for Dummies_ book from ol’ Istus. Trust your boy asked about that one. And her ever holy and sacred answer was simply “You’ll figure it out.”

Yeah, sure, he’s mostly figured it out. But a book he could at least complain about and throw into a corner somewhere would have been nice.

Thankfully, the day to day fate life is pretty simple. Not even half the paperwork the bone squad deals with — thank you, Istus — and usually far cleaner. The amount of times Barry has come home splattered with questionable biomess far outweighs the times he hasn’t. Taako is so good without that. Most weeks he doesn’t even get called in. He just pops over to the Celestial to chat with Istus and complain about not understanding the Weave. (“I’d explain it to you, Taako, but that would take millennia.”)

When the gold spindle around his neck heats up, however, there’s real work to be done.

Both a focus and a celestial sending stone, Taako hasn’t taken the thing off since the day he got it. If Istus sees a break in the Weave, a threat to the order of fate, the spindle becomes an unavoidable presence, pulling at the fabric of his very being. The very first time it happened, it had shocked Taako so bad he almost chucked it at Merle — a handbook might have avoided that one, _Istus_. Now, he just rolls with it.

He figured out early on and all on his own, thank you very much, that the intensity of the spindle’s pull corresponded with the threat level. 

When gold threads of fate faded to silver there was no countdown to disaster, the spindle merely nudged him along towards them. Those threads might even fix themselves, so Taako took his time with those. Often, he needed to wait them out anyway, find the point where that thread would best coax itself back to gold and simply encourage it to do so.

If those silver threads faded to grey, however, Taako had to move a little quicker and so the spindle pulled a little harder. Grey threads had the potential to get incredibly sticky. When chance came into play one too many times and those silver threads lost the ability to right themselves, the Hand of Fate had to steer things back on course. Sometimes it was as easy as leaving a card to be found in a time of need, other times Taako had to get his hands a little dirty.

But as long as that grey thread didn’t turn black, Taako’s job was easy peasy. Black threads were nasty. He’d only had to deal with one since the Hunger was defeated, but it had been messy to say the least of it. Black threads were catastrophic, like world ending ‘oh gods it’s all on fire’ kind of bad. There hadn’t been an easy fix for it, no simple card or gentle nudging would have worked. A black thread needed to be cut before it corrupted the Weave and Taako was Istus’s scissors. 

That was the true reason Istus had put him on the books. The Hunger had been a knot of black threads. She needed someone who could intervene when she could not.

But he wasn’t all-seeing like Fate herself. Being her Hand, Taako could see all threads except his own. On a walk through Neverwinter, he could open his eyes to the Ethereal at will and see the glimmer of gold threads that bonded every soul to another. But the minute those threads tied to Taako’s, his vision went blank. Kravitz, Lup, Barry, Magnus, Merle, Angus, even Lucretia — he saw nothing. Not fate, no string left to weave, no lifelines attached to even his mortal family.

(“What’s the deal, Big Momma? Why are their threads cut? I thought we were all gucci with the gods.”

“You are gucci. I can see their threads just fine.”

“Then how come your boy sees jack shit?”

“Because even as my Hand, certain balances must be kept. I trust you quite a bit, but I know temptation to pull those strings to your liking would exist. It is for the best; as long as you still live among the living, you cannot see their threads or yours.”)

As annoyed as he’d been at the time, even he didn’t have it in him to lie point blank to the goddess saving his bacon and say he would never dream it. He would dream of it — he does dream of it. 

But it’s something of a relief now to know that at home he can simply be Taako. Spindles and scythes are hung up at the door. Sure, they might all have a tendency to get paged at weird hours — goddesses keep no schedules but their own — but at home they’re simply family.

—

It’s a venison kind of night. Family dinner nights are an upheld tradition, but what actually ends up on the plates is always a surprise. Sometimes Magnus busts down the door with something dead he wants to see seared and seasoned. Sometimes Lup demands trips down memory lane with recipes from the old plane. Other times Taako just has a hankering for some venison and the rest are going to shut up and eat or starve.

The bone squad is due home any minute and Taako, genius in the kitchen as he is, has timed the meat perfectly. The whole lodge smells of roasting meat and a heavy dose of herbs he’d picked up on some rock called Lantan. Too many robots there for his taste — and he is never bringing Magnus there, gods no — but they had a lovely selection of spices he hasn’t seen around Neverwinter. He’ll have to swing by again and get the name, maybe see if they’ll deliver to lone houses in the woods across the sea.

Humming as he cooks, Taako bops his head to a beat Angus had come home with, and checks the rest of his dishes. Potatoes? Roasting. Beans? Beaning. Bread pudding? Atrocious, but as good as it’s going to get with it being bread pudding. (“Really, Barold? Really? You want to waste all of this Taako goodness on bread pudding? Your boy found a new way to up the boring game, Lulu!”)

Taako twists his wrist and an oven mit materializes as he tugs open the oven for a peek. He’s a chef. He’s used to kitchen related incidents, part of the trade. But the sudden pain against his chest shocks a short circuit to his brain. Hand in the oven does not equal quite fucking literal heartburn and as he recoils from the stove it takes him a minute to remember the spindle on his neck.

Willing the mit away, he grabs at the spindle and immediately sheds his elven form for his lich one. With a flash of starlit eyes the kitchen goes cold, all fires immediately blown out as Taako vanishes from plain sight.

The spindle has only ever burned with such urgency once before. Lup, Barry, and Krav would be home soon to a cold and empty kitchen, but Taako has to worry about that later. 

A black thread pulls at the Weave. Taako has work to do.

—

Following the spindle is almost second nature. The reapers use their scythes to jump across continents and planes at will, but Taako doesn’t have an austentatious gardening tool to travel by. He can either pull at the fabrics of the universe to let him step from one place to the next or he lets the thread pull him on its own. With the pulling this black thread is doing, Taako is where it wants him hardly a breath later.

One moment he’s standing in his kitchen, the next he’s staring into the murky grey tides of the coastline. A storm’s beginning to roll in, but Taako barely sees the world around him as he tracks the glimmer of a half dozen threads crossing through the cove.

The black thread is hard to miss, a single pitch chord amidst the silver all around it. It pulls him down the coast, where sand gives way to rock and stone beneath a sharp cliff. But just as soon as he finds it, it’s gone. And every thread that glimmered along its path vanishes with it.

Taako feels his dead, beating heart drop to his not-there stomach.

And he knows what this means — even before the whisper of a rift between the planes unleashes the peals of Lup’s laughter behind him.

“Taako!” Her eyes light up like Candlenights come early as he whirls to face her, them. All three of his fucking idiot reapers. “I thought you didn’t get my message.”

“Lup…” Barry. Brilliant, clever, idiot Barry. He stares at Taako, knowing brown eyes tracking up and down the spectral form. “I think Taako’s here for a different reason.”

“What do you— T?”

“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.” Can a lich’s bones rattle when their hands shake? Survey says no because Taako’s hands are shaking something fierce and all he hears are crashing waves. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Kravitz’s stupid, handsome face loses the fond amusement it held just seconds before. “Taako, love, what’s happening?”

“TRY AGAIN. WHAT DID YOU CHANGE?”

Lup shares a glance withBarry before stepping towards her twin. “Lafayette and Moira were supposed to take this job. Moira took a bad hit earlier, so we said we’d take care of it before heading home. It’s a quick gig. I sent a message by Farspeech, we can clean up in five… why are you here, Taako?”

Taako sweeps across the sand towards them, water lapping past where his boots might have splashed. “WHAT KIND OF JOB, LUP?”

“You can’t see the threads,” Kravitz quietly realizes. “You could before, but then we got involved.”

“AND FUCKED IT UP REAL GOOD, YEAH, BUBELAH. TAAKO’S GOT THAT MUCH. WHAT. JOB.”

Barry pushes his glasses up and rubs his face. “Necromancers, at least one death criminal appears to be working in this area.” He talks like he’s reading the file, and hell, he might be in that big brain of his. “There’s a young elf girl missing in the area, as well. Not our jurisdiction, but we have reason to believe they have her and are planning something while Selune’s power is dampened by the new moon.” He looks up, every bit as earnest as he ever is. “Taako, the four of us can handle whatever’s in that cave. We’ve handled scarier threats on less intel.”

Taako’s form flickers, his magic going static with growing distress. “BLACK THREAD, BAROLD. BLACK. THREAD. THAT DIDN’T APPEAR UNTIL FIVE MINUTES AGO WHEN YOU TOOK THIS JOB.”

Kravitz raises a hand towards Taako, but recoils at the spark of magic dancing dangerously beneath his touch. “Love, I need you to breathe for a moment so we can figure this out.”

But Taako doesn’t need to breathe, not literally or figuratively. He might not see the Weave like Istus can, but he sees enough. Two lackluster reapers, one with an injury, going to deal with a pit of necromancers. It screams of failure and boneheaded incompetence. But Big Bird’s golden trio on the job? There isn’t a chance in any universe they don’t stop what’s coming to pass.

And Taako… Taako needs it to come to pass. 

“GO HOME. THERE’S A ROAST IN THE OVEN. TAAKO’S GOT IT FROM HERE.”

Lup’s shaking her head even before the scythe materializes in her hand. “Nu-huh. You expect us to just leave? Last time you dealt with one of these shitty threads Bear though he was going to have to build you a new body. Not happening. We’ll handle this together.”

“THAT’S THE THING. YOU’LL HANDLE IT.”

She huffs. “What does that even mean?”

Kravitz. Beautiful, goth geek that he is, he hasn’t stopped puzzling out the details. For all the shit Taako and the boys gave him when they first met, he’s still the High Reaper. He’s had his head in this game for longer than they’ve been breathing on any plane. “Moira and Lafayette we’re going to fail, weren’t they?”

Taako laughs. “I DON’T KNOW, KRAV. YOU BONEHEADS HAD TO COME AND BLIND ME. MAYBE THEY WOULD HAVE. MAYBE WE COULD BE HAVING FUCKING DINNER RIGHT NOW IF YOU THREE WEREN’T SUCH OVERACHIEVERS.”

“That’s not fair, Taako.”

“THIS ISN’T FAIR, LUP.”

“We can fix this,” Barry says, hands coming up to placate them both. “But we also need to make sure that ritual doesn’t come to pass with that girl involved.”

(There’s a fourth thing Taako knows without a doubt. He hates it. He tries to forget it, but it’s there and waiting and more grim than the grim reaper.

  1. Not everyone gets a happy ending. Fate cannot favor everyone.)



“YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE THAT CALL, BLUEJEANS.”

He watches Lup’s face fall with dawning disappointment and it pains him to stare her down. “You can’t be serious, Taako. She’s innocent!”

“IS SHE? WILL SHE BE? I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THERE. I DON’T KNOW WHAT ISN’T COMING TO PASS. BUT I KNOW THE THREADS BROUGHT ME HERE TO YOU, NOT TO SOME HALF-BAKED LICH WANNABE IN A SHITTY LAIR. YOU’RE WHO I’M HERE TO STOP. NOW GO. HOME.”

“No.”

It’s one word. One syllable. Two letters. And Taako hates it with every fiber of his being because he’s terrified. He’s terrified that there’s an option none of them are considering. What if that black thread is one of theirs? What if it’s Lup’s? It was gone before he could trace it, it could be. It can’t be, but it could. He can’t lose her again. He can’t lose any of them, but not her.

Taako’s hella thankful for the skull right now. No better way to keep face than by just not having one. 

There’s a shimmer of magic at his fingers that stretches out and down until Krebstar solidifies in his hand. He wields the glaive with a confidence he absolutely does not feel and draws a literal line in the sand between them with it.

Lup eyes it and Taako, amusement and anger warring in the twitch of her lip. “Taako. You’re not going to fight us, bro.”

“Lup…” Barry reaches for her shoulder and she shrugs him off.

“He’s not!”

Thunder cracks above them and for a long minute no one moves as the rain begins to fall in heavy sheets.

“FATE’S ON MY SIDE, LULU. LET’S SEE THAT FIRE OF YOURS IN A STORM.”

It’s Kravitz who catches his eye and Taako feels that creeping fear in his ribcage. Kravitz knows what it’s like to fight Taako. And he also knows Taako would cut off his own arm before he hurt Lup. The reaper’s eyes flare red even a/'s the glaive spins from Lup to him. “He’s stalling us—” is all he manages before the Black Tentacles rise up, an unrelenting, wriggling mass. “Taako!”

With the first shot fired, Lup doesn’t hesitate. She dashes past him, shedding her body mid stride for the red robe and Taako whirl about, yanking at the hem of it.

It’s not a real robe. It’s not like grabbing any other sleeve. It’s Lup. It’s all her magic and splendor and fury in one semi-tangible form and Taako digs his own existence into it when he pulls her back screaming. “DON’T!”

“LET ME GO!”

In an instant she’s on him, clawing and spitting, and they are their own storm. Magic clashing on magic. It’s like when they were children pulling on each other’s hair; it’s like two old gods fighting at the end of the world — nothing can come between them now. They are pure, equal power and both so afraid of what the other might be willing to do.

At least Barry is smart enough to not try and pull them apart while Kravitz is indisposed. 

Taako can feel his sister’s magic sparking against him like his own. They became liches together. They’ve been bonded across centuries, even when one of them didn’t know it. Every flare of panic and fury one feels fuels the other. 

Somewhere behind them the tentacles melt away into the shadows cast by the rolling storm, but Taako can’t even spare the six seconds it takes to recast it. Not with Lup so determined to pin him down. Her own fingers dig into his magic and Taako howls, not in pain, but desperation and his magic ripples out like a shockwave for it. 

Lup holds tight even as sand blasts around them and forces Kravitz to shield himself with a cloak of feathers. 

But in the settling sand Barry is nowhere to be seen.

Taako stares into the diamond hard eyes of his twin and grits his teeth. “STEALING MY PLAN IS CHEAP.”

“WHAT CAN I SAY? REAPERS DO IT BETTER.”

Then it hits. A sudden crack of lightning, electric and apocalyptic green, strikes the cliff, the unmistakable mark of a ritual channeling power. And Taako. Taako feels the black thread pull taut, catching all other threads around it in knots, as a scream breaks through the storm's roar.

All skeletal eyes narrow in on the cliff, but before either reaper can react, Taako is out. He pulls on the thread, folding the fabrics of the universe to his liking, and closes the ethereal gap between here and there in an instant. 

He doesn’t know what he’ll find as he materializes, he’s not sure he wants to know. If he could just see a single fucking thread…

But he doesn’t see the threads. No, the first thing he sees is the red robe of one Barry Bluejeans. And even that relief fades fast. Barry isn’t moving. Not just hovering in place, surveying the scene, but static, like someone just took a Fantasy Polaroid. The ever fluttering red robe, the pulsing necrotic magic that holds his bones, all of it’s gone painfully still.

Taako’s still a champ at that self-preservation game, though, so he doesn’t go rushing in. Even if part of his heart is screaming to do just that.

“BARRY.”

Silence. The stone itself holds its breath.

He casts one eye away from Barry, trying to puzzle out the room with a glance:

Lair? Definitely shady chic, but no creepy magic death circle as far as Taako can tell.

Girl? Unconscious, mostly breathing, against the far wall.

“BAROLD, WHAT GIVES?”

Necromancer 1? Definitely probably dead. Unless slit throats are In with humans now.

Necromancer 2? Slumped over a book, but not currently turning the pages red with dragonborn blood.

“BAROLD, I’M REALLY GONNA NEED YOU TO KNOCK THIS OFF. I CAN’T EXPLAIN TO LU THAT HER HUSBAND IS MODERN ART.”

He drifts forward, wanting a closer look, but behind him there’s a gasp and a hand on his that pulls him back. 

“WAIT!” 

He whips around to face Kravitz. Except Kravitz isn’t looking at him, his eyes are laser focused on the ceiling, and Taako tips his head back.

Runes. Dozens and dozens of intricate, interlacing lines and circles of runes, all spiraling towards the point Barry is frozen beneath. Each carving crackles with a dim green light, like fading sparks in the stone.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS, KRAVITZ? WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM?” Lup dances along the edge of the circle with them. Even from here he can feel the anxious flare of her magic.

“NOTHING GOOD. I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS.” Definitely not what you want to hear from an unknowably old being of death. “SOME OF THESE RUNES ARE OLD NECROMANCY, BUT THE REST…”

“IT’S TRANSMUTATION.” Taako lifts Krebstar up and traces the blade along a series of sigils that repeat throughout the inner circle. “I USED THESE IN CYCLE 82.” He casts a look at Lup and her jaw clenches.

“SO THEY WERE TRYING TO BECOME LICHES. THAT’S WHAT THEY WANTED THE GIRL FOR. WE RAN INTO VARIATIONS OF THAT A LOT AT FIRST. AN INFANT’S HEART, A CHILD’S HEART. THEY WERE GOING TO SACRIFICE HER FOR A PHYLACTERY.”

Kravitz shakes his head. “NO, IT WAS SOMETHING ELSE… WE’VE ENCOUNTERED THAT SORT BEFORE. THIS IS DIFFERENT. IF TAAKO IS CORRECT—”

“HAVE BEEN ALL NIGHT. SHOULD TRY LISTENING TO YOUR BOY SOME TIME.”

“—THEN THEY WERE CHANGING SOMETHING, NOT SACRIFICING.”

“Clever corpse.” Across the circle, the white dragonborn smiles at them, all teeth and subtle threat.

(Taako will admit. This one’s on him. He’d sort of written of the rest of the room to focus on his brother.)

No longer slumped over their book, he can see the dagger in her lap and the macabre finger painting she’d drawn with her partner’s blood. “I have to admit,” she says, wiping at her pants as she stands, “I wasn’t expecting such a welcome to the club. Taako, Lup,” her eyes pass over Kravitz entirely and land on the frozen spectre with what could be a fond smile, but makes Taako’s non-blood chill, “and Barry.”

“HEY BRO, WE PASSING OUT ANY MEMBERSHIP CARDS?”

“ANGO GOT THE LAST ONE.”

“THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.”

Lup flings a warning Fire Bolt at her feet and the dragonborn laugh. “Yet you’re the reason I even began to consider this.” She taps a claw to their head. “All those memories of a family fighting so desperately to stay together and defy the odds through… unique means. It’s inspirational.”

He can practically hear Kravitz frowning beside him, a cool feat when he doesn’t have the skin and muscles to do so. “AND WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS?” 

“Finch, you can call me Finch.” When the only response is another blast of fire with a little better aim, she huffs out a breath of frost to negate it. “Do you want me to soliloquize? Tell you all my secrets?”

“PRETTY MUCH.”

“Please.” A satisfied grin spreads across her draconic face. “I took care of IPRE’s and the Raven Queen’s own Barry Bluejeans. What makes you think I’m going to sing just like that?”

Kravitz snaps and a book drops into his hands. “FINCH, WAS IT?” He flips through the pages and drags a skeletal finger down the finely written columns. “WELL, FINCH. THAT’S BIG TALK FOR SOMEONE WHO COULDN’T HAVE POSSIBLY FORSEEN OUR INTERFERENCE.” 

Taako shoots him a glare because there’s a lot of that going around right now, but the reaper studiously ignores him. Clever corpse in-fucking-deed.

“WHICH LEADS ME TO BELIEVE WHATEVER IT IS YOU WERE DOING HERE HAD UNINTENTIONAL SIDE EFFECTS. HARDLY SOMETHING TO BRAG OVER.” Kravitz closes the book and it vanishes once more. “YOU CAN COME ALONG WITH US, FINCH. MAKE THINGS EASY. TO BE PERFECTLY HONEST, YOU WEREN’T EVEN ON  _ OUR  _ RADAR BEFORE THIS. THOUGH I WILL SAY, ATTACKING A REAPER WON’T LOOK FAVORABLY ON YOUR RECORD, NOW. BUT TO ATTACK THREE… YOU DO SEE WHERE I’M GOING WITH THIS, YES?”

“I’ve attacked no one,” Finch says, a hand to her chest. She pauses, twists her foot once, and the blood of her partner squelches in the cave. “Well, I haven’t attacked any of you. And Barry? Barry is far too precious for me to attack him now.”

There’s a pulse of heat at Taako’s side as Lup growls, “WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Finch claps once and immediately two things happen: the dragonborn disappears and Barry Bluejeans screams.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, like Griffin, I too want to take a light-hearted, goofy idea and turn it into suffering. Stay tuned!


End file.
